Halloween 2002
by Arianna Waters
Summary: "Once's an incident; twice is coincidence. Thrice, it is a pattern." When Ministry fails, yet again, to charge the Death Eaters as guilty of their crimes, Harry Potter takes the job up as his own, seeking revenge and handing out justice. [Warning: Character Deaths]


**Halloween 2002**

 _Dear Miss Skeeter,_

 _I can call you Rita, can't I? So Rita, I'm writing this letter to invite you to the first (of many) Potter Halloween Masquerade Balls in the memory of my parents. It often gets lonely when I think back to my life and what I have lost, and I think that on the 20th anniversary of when I first vanquished the Dark Lord, I would rather celebrate their sacrifice with my friends and acquaintances instead of shedding silent tears._

Harry smirked, reading over what the half-written letter. He knew he was laying it real thick and copying the letter's to-be recipient very closely, but he also knew that Rita would eat it up. Completing his letter with a message that he had attached the formal invitation to the Ball for her, so that she wouldn't have to, _ahem_ , bug in, he added a little postscript:

 _P.S. I hope you keep the contents of this letter to yourself until after the Ball. After all, it would make a nice addition to the front-page you'll be doing for the event itself._

Charming the letter anyways so that she couldn't disclose the contents, except mentioning she'd got an invitation to the Ball, to anyone else, Harry passed it to Kreacher who sealed it in an envelope and attached it to one of the 160 owls Harry had rented for sending the invitations.

* * *

Rita walked off the platform she had Portkeyed into, the invitation that had brought her here still clutched in her hands, the blood-red, long nails digging into the parchment. She caught her image in one of the mirrors that decorated the Portkey room for the occasion. She looked very long around the middle—those mirrors were a Muggle party contraption she had come across once, Rita realised—but the black mask, accented with golds and greens, that hid most of her face still looked regal, her blonde hair and red-painted lips standing out in sharp contrast.

She looked good, Rita mused, and decided to thank Harry for sending an invite. It was nice to be actually a part of a party instead of snooping around, looking for gossips that might slip through. With that thought, she walked to the ballroom.

There were just around half a dozen people dancing to slow music or sipping from sparkling goblets, even though Rita had been fashionably late, but the woman brushed that off to the terrible tardiness that seemed common in most wizards and witches.

A couple more masked people, dressed in finery, stepped into the room and picked their drinks, before it happened.

As one, all sources of light blinked out of existence. There was a mild panic before whispers of ' _Lumos'_ sounded out from the tiny crowd. The panic grew when no lights appeared.

Someone hit Rita in the shoulder, jostling the goblet of wine she had picked up just before the lights went out. She felt the liquid soak through her robes, horror filling her mind at the thought of how she would look the rest of the night with a spot of red on her pale-green, custom-made outfit. It was her best and most favourite set of robes!

Just as people were getting used to the darkness and their wands' inability to banish it (or perform any other magic, as those who had tried had discovered)—at least as much as one could get used to wands malfunctioning, anyways—a very dim, red light came on. It seemed to emit from everywhere—there were no shadows formed, yet it seemed the room was full of shadows because of the low intensity.

If Rita had to describe it in one word, she would have picked 'spooky'.

Someone, a black-haired guy, opened the door to the ballroom, a _creak_ penetrating through the now-silent room as a result, and stepped out. Rita noticed the same red light in the hallway outside from the partially-open door. The silence, once again, was then broken by the sound of something heavy—a body, the imaginative part of Rita's mind supplied—hitting the floor.

The man's date walked to the door with cautious steps which came to a sudden halt, her goblet clattering to the floor as she screamed.

Rita stayed in the back as the others followed, a commotion breaking out as everyone stared at the pool of blood gathered around the head of the stocky man—Marcus Flint, Rita found out moments later from the pandemonium that broke out—a knife sticking out of his skull.

The reporter felt chilled to bone, unable to move her gaze away from the body, until she felt someone push at her as a witch stepped back behind the door. Everyone's attention was focused at one place, and Rita changed into her animagus form, vowing to stay that way until whatever had happened was resolved. She could leave, but she didn't want to miss a front-seat on what was sure to be a big hit in the papers the next morning.

With that in mind, Rita flew over to a blond man she recognised well from the number of times she had dealt with him and hid behind the ornate brooch that he wore on his green robes.

"We should leave at one, Pansy," the man said to his date, and Rita almost buzzed with delight. _Everyone_ knew of Draco Malfoy's betrothal to Astoria Greengrass, and it was a wonder as to why he had turned up with _Pansy Parkinson_ as his date to what was surely the event of the year.

Draco and Pansy moved to the hallway, the man swearing when he couldn't Apparate out nor open the front door and was forced to return to where the body still lay on the door to the ballroom, his date trailing behind him.

"It makes me queasy, this sight," the woman said, her high-pitched noise grating on Rita's nerves, as it always did. Being a reporter wasn't an easy job, with how she had to be not only civil with people she didn't even like, but also provide a good publicity for them. Parkinson was one such example.

Draco put an arm around her and led the way to the staircase, pausing only for a moment to stare at the House-elf heads that decorated the hallway. He seemed to mull over something as they sat down on the staircase, before saying, "Is it possible, Pan, that it was just a Halloween prank, and Marcus is sitting somewhere above us and is crowing with laughter at how we're being such pansies?"

Rita would have smirked if she could. So there was more to the story about Draco's love life if he was mocking his date in such a blatant way even though he was being such a gentleman to her. She couldn't wait to find out the actual story.

Pansy replied after a few moments' silence. "We can go check. The stench of blood is too much here, anyway."

As the couple— _pair?_ —were making their way up the stairs, a sharp BANG echoed in the house, startling the two and making the woman almost miss a step. Rita recognised it for what it was—her Muggle uncle had loved shooting, not that anyone knew she had a Muggle relative—and she couldn't help but wonder why there had been a gunshot in the house.

The noise repeated in three quick successions just as Draco and Pansy reached the first landing, and with the third one, the black-haired woman slumped down to the ground, making the blond man halt mid-step. From her perch, Rita noticed a bullet sticking right through the middle of her forehead.

She knew Draco would never admit it, but the blond screamed like a girl and ran up the staircase, only to pause at the sight of a man dressed in all black, his pitch-black mask even more ornate than Rita's had been. Glowing green eyes looked at Draco through it, and Rita felt a chill in her body. Even though she wasn't the target of the gaze, it felt as if she were staring at Death itself.

"Once's an incident," started the man, his thick, black hair seemingly blowing in wind, "Twice is coincidence." With that, he took a step forward and raised his hand, a sword appearing in it, its hilt encased in rubies. "Thrice, it is a pattern." With that, the tip of the sword came dangerously close to the blond's neck. Rita was frozen in her spot, hidden, yet in a position to see every happening from a closeness she wasn't sure she liked.

Draco gulped. "I—"

"Funny how the Ministry failed to recognise the pattern, time after time again. Funny how you escaped, unscathed, even as Remus Lupin was persecuted for being a werewolf _post death_ , even when he fought _against_ Voldemort.

"Justice can be a long time coming, but it does come. It did, for your father. It did, for Bellatrix Lestrange. It did, for your Dark Lord.

"And today, you will get your own justice."

With this, the beetle hidden behind the brooch was splattered with the blood that gushed out of Draco's throat as the Sword of Gryffindor pierced through it in one smooth move and was then withdrawn just as quickly.

The wielder of the sword turned, and Rita took flight off the now-dead wizard's body, only to be hit with an Avada Kedavra over the black-robed wizard's shoulder.

* * *

It was three days later that Draco's House-elf's successful attempts at finding its master led a team of Aurors, many of whom had enjoyed the Potter Ball at Godric's Hollow three days back, to Grimmauld Place, to a sight of esteemed Pureblood wizards and witches murdered brutally in Muggle ways, with the owner of the property nowhere to be found.

~fin~

* * *

 **1640 words  
** **Written for QLFC by Beater 2 of Falmouth Falcons  
** Prompt: Halloween: Resurrection (2002)


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